


Not-fic #1: Coincidences.

by CescaLR



Series: My Not-fics: A Collection Of My Rambly, Lazy Writings. That Are Sort-Of Fics, But Not. [1]
Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: (she could do it as a 9 year-old she can teach herself to do it again imo), Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Basically; warning for how Stiles and Malia think of themselves and what they have, Episode: s01e01 Wolf Moon, Gen, Guilt, I Wrote This Instead of Sleeping, I don't think, I think that's it? - Freeform, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, McTateInski friendship, Noah & Henry's, Notfic, Past Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Past Character Death, Past Child Abuse, Pre-Season/Series 01, Season/Series 01 AU, Self-Hatred, Sorry guys, Sort-of, Survivor Guilt, Swearing, Tell me if I missed anything, also, also Laura's corpse is mentioned but not described in any sort of detail., and, and haven't gone through it for editing so read with care, bases itself partly on, basically a total au, but is fairly divergent, but nothing graphic, for Claudia, full-shift were-coyote Malia (as it should be tbh), human!Scott, just has s1 romantic sub-plot elements sprinkled throughout, last night - Freeform, little blood mention?, s1 Peter so fair warning, so that's for her too, there will probably be mistakes and inconsistencies, thought I should say that now, very gen for the most part, what Claudia did is referenced so, whatever Stiles is lmao, yep
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-08-05
Updated: 2018-02-22
Packaged: 2018-12-11 13:14:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 17,981
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11715123
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CescaLR/pseuds/CescaLR
Summary: pulled from my tumblr because it probably won't get any attention over there. Unlikely to get attention here, either, but I thought I'd share it regardless.___So, Idea™. This is au form the get-go, btw, so fair warning.So. Let’s say, early on, like - really, early on, I’m talking before Stiles’ mom died and Malia’s family got into that car-crash, but after 2004 (hale fire, etc.) Stiles get’s bored, or something (maybe he hasn’t been diagnosed with aDHD yet, or maybe he has and he’s just bored, whatever works for you) and sneaks out of his window. Now, this is before theo, before scott - during the time I headcanon as his friends being Heather and Erica - but he doesn’t want to disturb them, see, because their lives are nice and idylic for the most part, so Stiles goes out into the woods alone.Which is a terrible idea. I'll fall to the shitty reference; he should be rather sure for a big surprise.___Wrote this reallllyyy late at night, so I'm not sure how it'll hold up to sane, non-sleep deprived minds. Have at it and tell me what you think!





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is pulled straight from my tumblr @cescalr , so... yeah.

Not-Fic (TW, AU from the get-go)

Fair warning (for this 'verse) there will be stalia bc w/ me that is inevitable and there will be scira and there will be marrish so thanks and if you don’t want in on that action buh-bye.

okay, first time writing not-fic, it’s 00:57 am, let’s GO-

* * *

So, Idea™. This is au form the get-go, btw, so fair warning.

So. Let’s say, early on, like - really, early on, I’m talking before Stiles’ mom died and Malia’s family got into that car-crash, but after 2004 (hale fire, etc.) Stiles get’s bored, or something (maybe he hasn’t been diagnosed with aDHD yet, or maybe he has and he’s just bored, whatever works for you) and sneaks out of his window. Now, this is before theo, before scott - during the time I headcanon as his friends being Heather and Erica - but he doesn’t want to disturb them, see, because their lives are nice and idylic for the most part, so Stiles goes out into the woods alone.

Now, Beacon Hills is a small town, sure, but big enough for two school districts; heather goes to a different school to them later, after all, so we can assume she did as a kid, too. I’m going to say that Malia and Kylie also went to this school district too - Heather’s schoolmates who she’d maybe mention in passing, perhaps. Stiles might not know their names; Might think of Malia as Leah, maybe he can’t remember if it’s Kylie or Kyle – doesn’t matter, point is that he has a vague notion of who they are; the Tates – this family what lives on the other side of the preserve to him,  _in_ the preserve which is mostly unheard of besides the hales, and we all know what happened to them.

Puts a dampener on people thinking of living in those woods, that sort of thing.

Getting back on track; Stiles goes into the woods, goes for a walk.

Now, let’s go over to Malia. In this universe, the Tates went the way of the Whittemores and out-right told their daughter she was adopted (as you should) – she’s about the right age, so it works. And unlike the Whittemores, it works out – she doesn’t hate them, she loves them; they raised her, and that matters more in her eyes.

But that doesn’t mean she isn’t an adventurous child. Malia lives in the preserve – she probably takes walks around it all the time, knows where her father puts his traps and his bait and stays away, understands the safer parts and steers clear of the husk that was the Hale house.

So maybe, out of pure co-incidence, Malia had a shit day at school, or something, so she sneaks out the back door – Kylie’s asleep, her parents are out (on a date; does it matter?) and the Nanny’s pretty chill (some might say too chill), so she just waves sarcastically as Malia  _tiptoes_ out the door (sorry sorry bad late night puns) – and wanders off in a vague direction. Malia, by this point, could most likely find her way around the woods pretty well – if not able to find her way home, she might go to the landmarks; the stump, that old cellar, and if she has to the Hale house, to work her way back home that way.

So Malia’s in the forest, and so is Stiles.

Maybe, because although Stiles isn’t a stranger to the preserve at night he isn’t as at home as Malia, Stiles gets lost. And he wasn’t as prepared – doesn’t have a map, doesn’t have specific routes or know the whereabouts of the hale house, the cellar or the old stump are in relation to the town, so Stiles gets lost.

Malia likes her walks (or runs, jogs – any of that sort of thing, really) so she takes longer that night, in order to clear her head. Makes for the stump in an old, well-worn path her father takes her on sometimes, when he goes out hunting (she’s assured it’s legally), and gets there slower than she’d normally do so.

When Malia arrives, this kid is there too.

Stiles is sort-of just sitting there, fidgeting, thinking  _whelp_ because his dad’s not great due to his mom’s… state, and he doesn’t want to make it  _worse_ by having him think Stiles was – kidnapped, or something, so he just sort of  _panics._

Let’s say Malia’s approach is quiet. She doesn’t mean it to be, but in the woods  _something_ sings within her and it happens anyway - especially on nights like this one; bright full moons, high in the sky – so it is. And Stiles – young, not so trained – flails, a bit, yelps, maybe.

Malia tugs him to his feet, brushes him down and demands his name.

“Stiles.” He responds, bewildered. Malia’s a protective girl, see – she doesn’t know who this is, though he’s her age… but also he’s some kid lost in the woods, and she’s  _protective,_ so she wants to know what the hell he thought he was doing.

“Exploring.” He says. “Clearing my head.”

And she  _gets that._

Yes, for different reasons, but she still gets it. Stiles doesn’t want to go home yet – his dad is probably still at work and anyone paid to care for Stiles never really lasts long in that job; too loud, too restless, too much of a trouble-maker, not worth the effort or the money or the time, Stiles hears behind his dad’s sighs (and their angry little notes left behind, sometimes with the agreed money attached to it still) (which, although guiltily, Stiles sometimes takes) – so Malia and Stiles sit down on the stump, and they talk.

Let’s fast forward – because otherwise this is gonna be hella long and no to that, ~~rest would be after the cut if I knew how to do those~~ -

* * *

So, a few months or so down the line, and Stiles is on that hospital roof.

We all know what Claudia does, so we won’t dwell on the details, but suffice to say Stiles suppresses more than just that one incident.

And when he sees Malia next, she quizzes him, and when he answers she frowns – because the tone is different, the answers are altered –  _something’s missing but what? –_ but,  _but,_ Stiles seems lighter than he has in a while, even if he’s still down trodden from… all of this; his mother’s illness, and whatever else that entailed which he never told her before even he didn’t know any longer – so Malia waves off his question, and, troubled, things move along.

Theo, then Scott. Heather leaves, Erica leaves. Theo leaves – abruptly so.

Stiles is… angrier than anything else, about that last one. He’s resigned to Heather and Erica – initiated it himself, for the latter.

But he’s angry about the last one. Malia listens to him vent and agrees, and a month or so passes and the boy is all but forgotten.

(But not really.)

Stiles and Scott get along like a house on fire, and Malia’s really glad – really, except Stiles can’t visit the stump as often or at all, these days.

She doesn’t really let that stop her. Gets a bike - begs her mother for one, really – visits the two boys and this friend group is  _three,_ not  _two._

It’s still two at school, though.

Not much else changes, at first, really.

Claudia dies.

Things change drastically.

It’s less Malia visiting Stiles and more Stiles dragging his asthmatic friend halfway across the preserve to visit her. It’s less laughter and more solemn silence. It’s less bonding and more antagonising – Stiles is  _looking_ for a fight, appears to want one desperately because he’s just so  _angry_ at the world.

There are stages of grief. Stiles skipped denial – it’s not hard if you were there when the other person died, after all. Saw it happen with your own two eyes.

You can’t deny that.

But the anger doesn’t last either. Not long. Not at the world, anyway.

After that, it’s not really anger. He’s still on a hair trigger, of course – Jackson’s nose can attest to that (he’d tried to take Scott’s inhaler –  _again)_ – but he’s not really angry.

Now, Stiles comes to the stump alone, and lets himself cry on her shoulder.

Malia wants desperately to know how to help, but also knows what would be needed, and knows she doesn’t have that.

So she sits. You’d think stiles would cry like he does everything else, but not really. It’s silent, mostly – nearly always, and when it’s not it’s more loud, shaky breathing than anything like sobbing – and when he pulls back, wipes his eyes, there are tear tracks on her t-shirt.

“Sorry,” he says.

“You need to grieve.” She responds in kind – quiet; trying not to disturb the strange silence of the woods.

So things change. It takes a bit, but Scott’s eventually brought back.

Malia still doesn’t visit the Stilinski household, but they start going to Scott’s after a sharp scare with his asthma the last visit.

“We don’t have to.” Scott says. “I’m – I’m not incapable of moving, guys.”

“Humour me.” Stiles says drily.

“I know that,” Malia replies. “ _We_ know that. But that doesn’t mean we should have been – careless.”

Scott seems to consider them both equally, and nods.

It’s not brought up again.

Let’s fast-forward a little.

Malia finds out about the dubiously-Sheriff’s drinking.

“ _No,_ Malia.” Stiles says – firm, unyielding.

He’s got a vice-tight grip on her arm, and Malia’s trying to tug herself free.

“I just –“ She placates – or tries; voice to curt and upset-angry to be convincing – “I just want to  _talk_ to him, alright? Just have a few words, nothing bad, I  _promise.”_

“Nope.” Stiles draws out. “You sound murderous Mal, not letting you near like that.”

Malia gives one last tug but Stiles isn’t budging so she deflates, sighs and says,

“Fine.”

The next week the sheriff’s job is finally put on the line. He starts getting sober, and Malia quietly fumes as Stiles seems glad.

(Should have been the son, not the job – that’s Malia’s thought process. Stiles is more worried about Noah’s liver.)

So. That’s all that dealt with, but what about the car crash?

As these sorts of things happen, it happens on a normal day.

Normal night, rather. It happened at night, if I remember correctly.

The day had been downright  _dull_ in it’s normality – Malia hadn’t yet seen Scott or Stiles, and the argument happening in the car was an old one.

Then It happens.

Malia doesn’t remember much, of course.

 _“I wish you were all dead.”_ Runs through her mind, and she  _runs._

Now – in the other world, a world where she didn’t appear to have any  _really_ close friends, or any friends who could in anyway relate, coyote!Malia went of into the woods for eight years.

In this – still too scared of her dad’s reaction – she doesn’t go home, but she goes somewhere else.

Malia hangs around three places. Four, in her visit to the car crash (whenever the flashing lights aren’t there – which only happened her first visit – a mere few human-hours since she’d seen it last).

It lasts for about three weeks.

The case goes cold – because of course it does – but Stiles convinces Scott to carry on looking.

And Malia – confused, unable to think in the way she used to –  _knows_ these people are Important; has flashes of too-bright images of darkened woods and light, airy homes (and one, memorable, quiet-dark time in the Stilinski home (how she’d found out about the drinking)) and thinks

_Friends._

More importantly, she thinks – in so much as she can, as a coyote – about a boy who confessed some of his darkest guilts to her, and thinks -

_Someone who knows._

Malia liked Scott as a human. As a coyote, he smells  _ill,_ like some fungus is creeping into him, stifling him.

Malia snarls at him until Stiles convinces Scott to back up enough so that she can’t smell him (Stiles says Scott might as well go home since it’s so far that Stiles can barely hear him) and then she stares at the boy in front.

In comparison to the images she knows, he’s grown. Not much – but Malia is suddenly, scarily aware of how much time has likely passed and how little she’d noticed.

“Hello?” Stiles questions. Curious; Malia hadn’t been sure if he would.

Maybe he can tell something’s up – Malia might’ve thought that if she’d been human.

He smells – Like guilt. Something else that she doesn’t recognise and raises her hackles; it changes something intrinsic to what she remembers, it’s sharp and manmade and  _wrong_ to her senses. He smells like someone she knew when Human, and that – that works.

She snarls when he makes to move, moves herself when he freezes.

The boy – Stiles – stares at her and his breath hitches, for a moment – Malia doesn’t know why, not really, but he must have seen something.

“What the hell am I getting into here?” Stiles asks himself rhetorically, raises his hands in a gesture she… can’t quite remember the meaning of but relaxes her slightly anyway, lowers himself into a crouch.

“Hello.” Stiles says. “Your eyes flash blue – quite literally. Did you know that?”

It takes a moment to register. Malia stops her movement forward, cocks her head at him.

Stiles nods, slowly. “They do, you know.”

Tentatively, he steps forward, one hand outstretched but - … unthreateningly.

“There you go.” Stiles mutters. “Please don’t bite my hand off. Nice coyote with weird magic-flashy-blue-brown eyes.”

Malia – somehow, not knowing she was capable in this form – manages a  _snort._

Stiles blinks. “Oh. Okay, uhm. That was funny? Right, sure. You – uh. You understand me?”

Malia steps forward, lets Stiles tap her lightly on the head with his hand, and lowers hers, slowly, then lifts it in an imitation of an action she remembers as human.

Stiles does the head thing to himself – up and down, the corners of his mouth pulling down in consideration.

“Right.” He mutters. “Strangely intelligent coyote with weird magic eyes. This is normal.”

Malia huffs and butts his hand with the top of her head.

Stiles blinks at her, frowns. Seems to peer closer than before, as if looking for something.

Something like recognition.

Stiles fidgets in consideration, seemingly working out how to phrase something.

“Say,” he starts, casually. His hand relaxes slightly, starts properly petting her head.

“You, uh, wouldn’t have seen a missing girl around my age, in these parts? Brown eyed, brown-haired, a tiny bit taller than me?”

Malia pulls her head back, paws backwards and barks sharply eyes wide.

Stiles jumps, slightly, but stills himself, looks at her askance and warily – looks and says, “I’ll take that as a yes.”

Malia barks out an agreement – a warning, too, but an agreement nonetheless – and steps backwards.

“Do you have any idea where she might have gone?”

Stiles is either brave or foolish, because if Malia had been a second away from biting him at the first question she’s even less so now.

But there’s something in this – Stiles, something in the eyes he has that makes her not do that.

Malia nods, slightly, eyes glaring bright blue.

Malia paws the ground, carefully, makes a shape in the leaf-litter on the forest floor.

Stiles looks at the arrow, at her, at her eyes and says.

“Well damn.”

So see, it’s like this; Stiles obviously has no fucking clue as to what’s going on. But he knows, can feel it in his  _bones,_ that this is his friend -this coyote is  _Malia,_ and he has no idea what to do about that or how to fix it.

Over the weeks following – Stiles is eleven, now, it took a year to find her after the authorities gave up – Stiles tries his absolute  _best_ to find out as much as he can from the internet.

This goes about as well as you’d expect; half the shit he finds is obviously fake, the other half all conflicts with each other and the only thing that he knows better now are the behaviours of coyotes.

And that’s more from personal experience with Malia than the internet, so Stiles gives up on that venture and sets on the task of finding this out pretty much on his own.

“So.” Stiles says, one day during this whole thing. “You’re a coyote. You really shouldn’t be a coyote – in fact, it should be  _impossible,_ but here we are so that’s a fact, and I just wanted to state that. You are a  _coyote.”_

Malia flicks her tail with impatience and stares back at him flatly from her perch on the old stump.

Stiles huffs, drops down to lean against the stump. Malia rests her head on his shoulder and stares at the notebook he’s holding.

She can’t read a thing.

Malia huffs and moves backwards, growls at the offending object.

“Yeah, see, there’s another downside. You can’t easily communicate, you can’t read, your emotions are all out of whack, nothing’s good about all of this so that’s why we’re gonna fix it.” Stiles says, determined.

Malia barks with unease at the prospect, but in this universe, with the company – with the weeks, months of Stiles talking her through her guilt and his guilt and all of the guilt (really, there’s a lot of that going around) she’s not as adverse to the idea as she was in canon, perhaps.

Not accepting – she’s not really any better off – but not  _as_ adverse, so there’s a start.

“So, you’re a coyote.” Stiles restarts. “Hopefully just a shapeshifter of some form, or you might try and kill me on full moons? Which I’m not looking forwards to, by the way.”

Malia snarls.

“Yeah, see – my point exactly.” Stiles blinks at her. “That’s terrifying.”

Malia yips and bats his head with her tail, yips more as he splutters.

And this continues. Stiles still avoids visiting on full moons – which she’s fine with; those days she runs free in the woods and  _hunts._

Stiles isn’t exactly pleased with the animal carcasses she sometimes brings him (or leaves at his back door step, what the hell Malia) but she seems proud? So he quietly disposes of them when she’s none the wiser.

Eventually, Stiles browsing the library has it’s uses.

“Found it!” He exclaims triumphantly, bursting through the treeline surrounding the stump.

Malia barks at him – he was unexpected, she’d been  _sleeping,_ what the hell Stiles – and he drops down, to excited to be either scared and or repentant.

“Right, yeah, sorry –” Stiles says, distracted (and completely insincere but she’ll let that slide) “But I’ve found it.”

Malia glowered at him.

“Right.” Stiles paused. “Extrapolate, Stiles. Okay, so, turns out you’re a werecoyote?” He winces. “Though that was obvious, really. The uh, the blue eyes are from guilt.” He adds, quietly. “Over your family.”

Malia snarls at him, backs up because she doesn’t want a reminder, but settles down after that reaction, a litter further away, this time.

“Thought you should know.” Stiles says.

Malia, slowly, nods, and Stiles moves along.

“So. Yeah, that. Right, well – there’s a cure.” He looks up. “Not for the – werecoyote…ism? I mean, it’s not lycanthropy, because you aren’t a wolf… never mind,” Stiles shakes his head. “Not important. But there’s a cure for you being stuck like this.”

Malia yips… curious. She tip-toes forwards, cautious, settles down across from Stiles.

A kind of… permission, even if she can’t give it vocally.

“Alright, okay, you want to know.” Stiles says.

“You just need to find something that can bring you back. Or alternatively find an alpha to yell at you and force you back, but I don’t really think that would help? Your psyche probably wouldn’t like it, is all.”

Malia growls at the idea of being  _forced_ human, and Stiles nods.

“We’ll find something.” He says.

Malia… is inclined to believe him.

Now, this is why this is not fic; I have no actual clue on what would bring her back. I’m highly certain that they’d try her dad, but that it wouldn’t work – that it, for a while, would probably make things  _worse._ So that ends up as a bust.

Let’s go with the idea that, well, they don’t manage to find something that makes her turn human.

But, after a few years, after more bonding and getting to know Scott and Stiles all over again… one day, Malia just… is. Human. Again.

She’s not over what happened – she’ll probably never be over it – but it’s different now.

There’s a kind of focus, in the back of her brain –  _who shot the bullets that left the casings? –_ and she can’t find that out as a coyote.

Whoever caused the car-crash caused what followed. Malia’s blame, while still mostly on herself, has, in part, transferred to them.

Stiles is the one to find her. She’s cold, and tired, and mostly  _confused,_ and after a quick “ _Malia?!”_ Stiles is giving her his jacket and his shirt – tied around her waist for privacy, jacket zipped for the same (also for warmth) – and sitting her up, brushing the hair out of her face and almost  _laughing –_ she can smell it, the relief, and then (it’s almost contagious) she’s laughing too, and it’s definitely hysterical but it’s  _real,_ and she can feel it, properly, and for now – besides the guilt and the fear and the  _anger_ that she feels simmering – that’s enough.

It takes some time for Malia to adjust. She’s not ready to go home or re-join everything – not yet, so Stiles accepts that, uses pocket money he saves to buy some cheap underwear for her (presented with a large helping of embarrassment covered with a false calmness belied by the reddening of his neck and, obviously, the thing in his scent that lets her know regardless) and sneaks her some of his and her old clothes to wear (she doesn’t ask how he got them out of her house, he doesn’t say) and eventually, when Scott starts getting suspicious, they tell him.

It’s Scott, in the end, who convinces her to talk to her dad. Stiles was content with letting her choose her own pace, but Malia knows she was using that – using his relief at her being herself again – to stay as far away from her problems as possible.

And Stiles was, quietly, aiding and abetting this, because in the end he’s sure he’d have done the same in her place.

But Malia, with Scott and Stiles as support, goes home.

She’s not as behind as she would have been – and definitely not as behind as she should be, because Stiles has been lending her his notes from the past years, his textbooks he doesn’t use and some stuff bought second-hand he thinks she might like (alongside all the food) so she’s not even as far behind on pop-culture as she would have been.

It’s Stiles who convinces her not to tell her dad about the whole coyote thing. Since she’d been undecided before, and she was highly certain that he probably wouldn’t believe her even if he did tolerate it for a while, so she agreed, and she didn’t tell him.

There is no Eichen House in her immediate future, in this ‘verse.

They’re thirteen. And life goes on.

Malia, with the other two’s help, tries and tries and eventually,  _learns_ how to control this thing she has.

Stiles takes her aside, one day, tells her about anchors.

“Just – since we’re doing this, and all, full moons might actually be a problem? So all I’m saying is you need to find a way to anchor yourself to your human side. What little that book says on it is that it can be literally anything – like even a really nice goddamn rock that you found when you were like, two, or something, I don’t know – but the point is, it can be  _anything.”_

This Malia – this Malia, who met Stiles but is younger, met Stiles but it’s a different Stiles, met Stiles but their situations are changed – doesn’t make it Stiles.

(I feel, in this verse, that there are three blatant options with vastly differing outcomes; her guilt, her  _revenge_ – on the person who shot the gun at the car – or her sister.

This Malia will not make it the first or the third option.

She’ll make it her revenge.)

(And it will work, for the most part. It will work  _enough._ )

They’re fourteen, and Malia’s dad takes her aside, and (drunk) says – “I know who your father was related to, if you want to find him.”

“Alright.” Malia says. She does, actually, want to find him; because maybe he’s the reason she’s not exactly human.

“Tell me.”

(She doesn’t think to ask about her biological mother. Even if she had, he wouldn’t have known anything – but she doesn’t think to ask because she expects the father to know who the mother was.)

Stiles is more help at sussing out the timelines and all that jazz, at figuring out which Hale could be her dad.

“Well, there’s only one living, male, able-to-have-kids Hale left in the county. So he’s the only potential we could visit anyway.”

Malia frowns at Stiles. “Great.”

He shrugs, and says – “Wanna catch a ride with Melissa to the hospital?”

Scott’s mother is uncertain, tells Malia not to get her hopes up but drives them there regardless – and Stiles (knowing the way well, as he does) leads Malia easily to the long term care ward.

“Peter Hale.” Stiles announces. “You’re not gonna like this.” He sighs.

“I know what happened to him, Stiles.” Malia says. “But we have to check if he can respond before we forcibly take his blood to discretely take a dna matching test.”

(That Melissa will quietly perform. She can’t guarantee how well it’ll be done, but they didn’t exactly get the blood with  _permission._ )

Stiles sighs. “Quieter, Mal.”

The two enter the room. It would be another few months before Peter’s wolf is able to move around, so the two are fresh out of luck in trying to talk to him.

They leave with no answers and a hidden syringe, they leave with more simmering frustration than they entered with.

So, the test comes back positive – she’s Peter’s biological daughter.

And that’s it. For a bit, that really is it. Things go pretty much as they did previously.

Up until that night. Up until Stiles hears about two joggers finding a body in the woods, and doesn’t end up dragging the friend who ‘wants to get a good night’s sleep’ (and is asthmatic).

He climbs up to Malia’s window, knocks on and says:

“Two joggers found a body in the woods.”

And thus – the first major change; Scott does  _not_ get bitten.

Another change – Stiles doesn’t own up to being there to his dad. Malia  _shifts,_ fully (because, in this universe let’s just say she can for the hell of it. This  _is_ fanfiction, after all – and if she could when she’s nine I have no doubt that she can at any other age) and tackles Stiles, then – carefully – drags him off in another direction.

“Ugh –  _ow –_ Mal, really –  _stop,_ god.”

Malia does, of course. She doesn’t shift back – her clothes are strewn somewhere she doesn’t know – and yips at him.

“Yeah, yeah.” Stiles huffs, checks his arm. “Thanks for not chewing through the jacket. Explaining that to dad would have been… fun.” Stiles adds.

Malia barks in understanding and then – tackles Stiles again, covers him as much as possible and whimpers when the deer run over them, stampede, but her bones heal what Stiles couldn’t easily so she’ll take that instead.

“ _Mal”_ Stiles barks – scared – pushes her off of him and checks her over.

“You really need to stop  _doing that.”_

He huffs when he finds that – whatever was hurt – nothing is broken now.

Whatever Malia would say is interrupted by growling, by Stiles’ “Oh damn.” And her own instincts.

Whatever it was didn’t expect a coyote to launch itself at it, nor did it expect said coyote to be a  _were_ coyote, and said coyote-girl to tackle him as much as is possible.

They tussle. The larger one relying on his strength and his  _burning anger,_ and Malia relying on speed and a clear head.

Whatever it is didn’t appear to expect Stiles to take advantage of it’s hyper-focus on Malia.

Stiles buries a stick – sharp and big enough to hurt – in the thing’s shoulder.

It  _howls,_ and this is the kind of thing Stiles had expected from werewolves – not his friendly, slightly broken (but no less – and likely more – than he is) fellow Beacon Hills resident.

Malia takes her chance, and clangs the  _not-_ wolf over the head with a big rock.

Multiple times.

Eventually, after more dodging and more stabbing (from Stiles) the thing falls unconscious.

Stiles grabs his phone from his pocket, fumbles for it, and snaps pictures as the thing transforms.

Malia quickly – before the transformation can finish – grabs a bunch of the leaf-litter and drops it over the now clearly a man’s groin.

“Oh, right.” Stiles nods. “Good idea.”

There’s a pause. Stiles flicks on the flashlight – so that he can see – but Malia’s silence is one of shock.

Shock doesn’t really silence Stiles, though.

“Oh. Shit, it’s Peter.”

That was kind of deadpan, for the moment. They glance at each other and let out a hysterical burst of laughter.

Malia’s not healing her cuts and bruises as quick as she normally would, and Stiles has human healing (for the most part) so the little nicks from scrabbling around in the dark and not quite dodging away in time are still there and still fresh.

There’s a little blood on all of them.

Malia sighs, and the silence is broken.

“I should –” Stiles says, aborted, then takes of his jacket and then his over-shirt. Holds them like he knows what he should do with them but isn’t a huge fan of the idea.

“He’s my… biological dad.” Malia lets out. “I’ll do it.”

Stiles gives her the shirt. She ties it around his waist, takes off her jumper and does the same but in reverse.

Stiles puts back on his jacket and turns back around at Malia’s “Done.”

“Right.” He says. “Now to get him somewhere – more secure.”

Malia remembers the cellar she used to use as a landmark. The one that was, now that she thinks about it, suspiciously close to the burnt-up hale house.

Malia puts this aside, picks up one of Peter’s arms and slings it around her shoulder.

“Little help?”

Between the two of them, they get peter there within the hour. It wasn’t not far from where they were, anyway.

Neither of them question what they find inside the cellar. They pick up the old, rusted chains and the old, rusted cuffs and lock Peter to the bars lining the back.

Malia never came in here, as a kid. She’s rather glad she didn’t, now.

(She’s still a kid, really – but not, truly. Not after what she’s been through.)

They kick back, for a bit. Chat about school, no matter how inane that is. Malia teases Stiles about Lydia (Something that seems less relevant to him these days than it did back when they first met – but she still does this), and Stiles teases her about  _‘French Boys’_ and they chat. Anything and everything is what they talk about – aside from the elephant in the room.

Or, rather – the terrifying, likely mentally unstable  _Alpha_ werewolf chained up in the corner, with as little room to move as what made them safe.

It takes a bit more time – Malia takes out a baseball from her pocket when Stiles really starts to fidget and they start tossing that around for a bit – but they hear a groan.

Stiles catches the ball and snaps his head towards Peter. Malia’s eyes are wary, but curious.

Peter’s eyes are blue, naturally. That’s the first thing that Malia properly notices about him – cataloguing the differences rather than the similarities.

It’s a groan of pain, they can tell – but his eyes are unseeing.

“I’m guessing the magic side of him is healed but the human side might very well be dead.” Stiles murmurs.

Malia thinks the same. Still, the two aren’t going to let that stop them.

They take it upon themselves to get Malia’s biological father’s  _human-_ self back to full health whilst making sure his wolf-self is sufficiently cowed and unable to go around attacking people in the woods at night.

Because that’s both rude and likely to get them all caught. It’s also evil and leads to death, which is their main point of contention with the whole thing.

The fact that, for all they know, he killed the girl in the woods.

So yes. That night, they make a pact and go home.

Malia is the one to take Peter food in the morning – they’d agreed – but Stiles shows up anyway.

“I don’t think you should go alone.” Is all he says about it, but Malia… agrees, in a way, so the two wander off, arrive an hour before school is due to start.

Peter is still chained up, but he’s sitting. A different position to what he was in last time.

This immediately makes them wary.

(Because of course it does.)

“Okay, maybe not as dead as I’d thought.” Stiles amends.

Malia nods, slowly, but approaches regardless.

“Hello.” She says – can’t help but flash back to when she was treated like this; like a cornered animal. That first meeting.

(She admits that is almost what she was, then. But also not really.)

Malia isn’t a huge fan of the parallel.

“I’m Malia. You don’t know me, or at least I doubt you do, but I’m your biological daughter. It wasn’t the best technically first meeting; you trying to kill me, but we’ll work past that and get you in a state where you can explain to me everything, alright?” She asks – knowing that there would be no answer, but having to do so regardless because… well, it makes her feel less like she’s talking to a corpse.

“Might have to force-feed him.” Stiles sighs. “I can, if you want. Mom…” He paused. “Well, I’ve told you before.”

Malia nods, quietly. Steps to the side but not back – ready to stop Peter from lunging for Stiles if he were to do so.

Stiles gets Peter to swallow the food, carefully, then gets him to swallow the drink.

“I think we might have to somehow get him on a tube or something.” Stiles says, concerned. “You can’t really make it all the way here from your school, and I won’t have time to do this and eat at lunch.”

Malia nods. “I’ll look into that.”

Stiles inclines his head.

The two go their separate ways, after making sure Peter was as secure as possible, and then disguising the entryway, over to the high-schools in their respective districts.

The first day goes… mainly the same. Stiles doesn’t tell Scott about what happened the previous night. Scott doesn’t hear Allison talking to her mother, but he pretty instantly crushes when he sees her.

He doesn’t give her a pen until she asks, and so that whole thing is slightly less creepy.

(Yeah, okay – I admit, that whole thing would have been a little creepy if I were either of them? Like, ‘how does this guy (whose pretty cute tbh) know I needed a pen??’ and ‘what the heck how did I hear her damn (she’s pretty) why am I being so creepy rn??’ so yeah, I actually found that whole scene both cute and creepy. Creepy-cute.)

(It’s weird. Movin’ on.)

So yes. Similar first day.

Similar; not the same. Duh.

Scott isn’t a werewolf. When he’s in goal, he’s still pretty shit (as he was perma-benched pre-show, it’s assumed he wasn’t actually any good at lacrosse – not the bits what require you to move a lot, nor the ones that require you to move little.) and doesn’t overhear Allison (who isn’t a jerk even slightly about skill at sports, unlike S1 Lyds) ask who he is, or whatever.

He’s also never played goalie? So I’m guessing he’d be bad at it regardless of skill at the rest of the game. Scott misses catching almost every shot.

He catches one or two out of sheer dumb luck.

He does manage not to take any in the face, though. There’s that.

He misses the one Jackson throws, and Lydia cheers for her boyfriend.

(One thing before we move on. That girl that appears in the first ep, talking to the two of them? I think her name is Sydney, but that’s what I’m gonna call her from now on btw, even if it isn’t, just as a heads-up. Anyway, I fucking  _bet_ that she’s prol’ly thinking something along the lines of ‘… right, Stilinski. _‘Beautiful people herd together’,_ never heard so shallowly accurate – I mean, look at Scotty and you and that girl you hang around with – I mean, objectively, you’re all fucking masterpieces.’)

After lacrosse practice, Scott goes to Deaton’s clinic for work, and Stiles heads off into the woods.

He meets Malia at the stump, and slowly they make their way to the cellar.

They’re lucky they went slowly (out of reluctance, perhaps) because they’re found – just as Derek came across Scott and Stiles, ‘trespassing’ on his property (which probably isn’t anymore? I don’t know property laws but that thing does  _not_ pass regulation) and Stiles doesn’t need to exposit info because we all know this shit.

“You’re Derek Hale.” Malia says. “My biological father’s your uncle; would that allow me to ‘trespass?’”

Stiles snorts. Malia’s always been blunt – as a child it was… well, because she was a child, and as a teen it’s because that’s the kind of person she is, really.

Blunt, and truthful. Harshly so.

Derek doesn’t seem to know what to say to that. Instead, he says;

“My uncle isn’t in the long-term care ward anymore. Why is that?”

“Well, that’s because he’s somewhere else.” Stiles says amicably.

Malia nods, serious. “The time I saw him last he was safe.” She said. “All cared for and shit.”

There’s a pause.

“You know where he is, don’t you?”

Hale is suddenly in front of them, and Malia is suddenly in front of Stiles.

Her eyes flash brilliant blue and so do Derek’s in response.

“Fucking hell, does it run in the family or what?” Stiles lets out, resigned.

Derek looks… surprised, for a moment.

Then, of course, his face closes off.

“That is none of your business.” He says, gruff. “Do you have any proof that Peter’s your father?”

“Yeah.” Malia says. “Look at me.”

Derek looks at her, sighs.

“Fine.”

Abruptly, he turns. “Come.” He commands. The two move to follow, but his arm snaps out and not-so-gently shoves Stiles backwards.

“Not you,” He says. “Just my relative. My  _kind._ ”

“Malia  _Tate._ And this is Stiles, by the way, and he’s been far more helpful that you and  _‘your kind’._ ”

Derek  _almost_ looks to  _almost_ snarl, but leaves it. Turns, and walks.

“Go.” Stiles breathes, right next to her ear – trying to keep it low enough so that Derek won’t hear.

“I’ll do the thing, yeah? Find out what he wants.”

And then Stiles is gone, Malia listens to him jog off and hopes he won’t get lost again (But they know the route well, after so long – she’d taught him in the years, about orientating yourself in these woods) for a moment, before following – what, her… cousin? Or something? Malia doesn’t begin to understand that system, so she shrugs goes with  _‘biological cousin’_ and leaves it at that.

After this – Scott is still at the vets, but he doesn’t need to check any wound so he hears Allison’s first knock.

Scott opens the door, and the interactions are for the most part exactly the same. Scott and the dog is a little different, but Scott’s good with animals – he’d have to be, as a vet-to-be – and coaxes it in and out of the rain.

The both of them are sopping wet and they laugh at that – have the same conversation as in the actual show, Scott still sort-of creeps on her changing her top, and that whole thing is pretty much exactly the same.

(it is now 4:43 am. I have taken breaks, but damn I’ve been at this for a while. Stillll going, though, glad I slept through most of the day rn so I’ll have the juice for this tbh. Speaking of juice…)

Next day is different. Scotty doesn’t wake up in the woods, in fact he wakes up at home and goes to school in his normal fashion.

It’s back over to Malia and Stiles for the changes. To makes this easier, let’s back-track to when Malia wandered off with Derek.

Derek takes her to the Hale house. Unfortunately for him, Malia’s spent a fair amount of time with the one and only Stiles Stilinski, so she’s learned to be able to talk circles around the actual answers people want without ever actually lying.

(It’s an art form, really. She hates lying on principle, so it’s a useful alternative when that sort of thing is necessary.)

(Malia doesn’t know Derek, doesn’t know what he wants. She doesn’t trust him not to do something stupid.)

She leaves Derek with no more answers and in a huff – him, not her – and sprints off to the tree stump.

Stiles is there, tossing around the baseball she left with him the previous night.

He chucks it to her and she catches it with a “thanks,” he nods and they get up and they leave.

(“How’d it go?” Stiles asks. “Well enough. He’s frustrated, knows we know but is unaware of Peter’s location.” Stiles nods. “And you?” Malia asks.

“Well enough.” Stiles returns, wryly. “Didn’t get bit, forced him some food and drink – a lot, really, but I think he needs the strength – and all that. Left after I was done, ‘cause there was no point sticking around.”

Malia nods, and that’s that.)

(Stiles didn’t lie; he left after he was done. He just left out the part where he talked at Peter for a bit. He wasn’t exactly nice, but it had to be said.)

Alright, so.

Seems anti-climactic, but that’s the first day from the first ep. Done. Let’s go to the second day in the first ep.

Back with Scott – he goes to school as he usually does (from his house) and doesn’t get called out (and harassed) by Jackson about his new-found lacrosse skills, because he has exactly none. Still.

Back with Stiles – he hears about the second half of the girl still being missing. But the fibre analysis on the first half (or the lower; take your pick) came back, and they found  _wolf hair._

When Malia reads the text she slams her head against the desk. Honestly, she’s very uncertain on how ‘her kind’ manage to stay hidden with shit like this.

And like the dent in her desk. Malia winces and places her folder over the dent, leans on it and smiles convincingly at the other students present.

Stiles asks Malia if they should tell Scott. Malia is uncertain he’d believe without a full demonstration, so they decide to wait until things are a little less hectic and he hasn’t gotten other stuff on his plate to do so.

Today is a Friday, and it’s a day that has a party, a party at which Scott  _has a date,_ and Stiles doesn’t really want to ruin that, so they let them (Scott and Alison) be.

The two go to the party, though, because it’s not invite-only, and also they might as well find something to celebrate.

They hang around the edges for a bit, Malia convinces Stiles to dance with her for a while, then they hang around the edges some more.

Stiles is the first to see Derek – Malia is the first to sense him.

“Where?” She asks – the crowd too thick and the scents too overwhelming – and Stiles nods to a corner where the man is spying through the fences.

“Right.” Malia huffs. “Let’s stop him from getting arrested, yeah?”

The two discretely wander over to the corner. Malia has since taught Stiles a modicum of subtlety, so this actually works, and they don’t draw attention.

“What do you want?” Malia hisses.

“As you can tell, we’re kind of busy.” Stiles says drily.

“It’s a full moon.” Derek’s voice is as flat as always.

“Duh.” Stiles rolls his eyes. “I have a lunar fucking calendar; we know.”

Derek narrows his eyes at Malia – blatantly blanking Stiles. “Can you control the shift?”

“Dude.” Stiles says. “Really?”

Malia glares flatly at Derek. “Yes.” She says, slowly. “I’ve had this for years, now, what the hell –  _why_ wouldn’t I have found this yet?”

“You can’t learn everything from a  _book._ ”

Derek snaps – almost… disgusted, Malia thinks, at the thought.

“We didn’t.” Stiles says. It’s flat – lacking the mirth he’s had throughout the conversation. “Though, to be fair, History of Lycanthropy was a good starting point. We were lucky my mom was into that stuff, though – to be fair.”

“I thought you found it at the library?” Malia said. “Yeah.” Stiles nodded. “I did. I found it at the library at the directions given to me from a few receipts in my mom’s stuff.”

Malia looked at him flatly.

“… Okay, so yeah, I left that out, so what.” Stiles muttered – rubbed the back of his neck; uncomfortable.

Malia huffed, let it go.

Derek looked – well, he had limited facial expressions so far as Malia could tell (though, to be fair, she hadn’t known him long) – so she didn’t really know what he looked, but he definitely wasn’t happy with being ignored.

“Oh.” Stiles said. “You’re still here. Right.”

Derek glowered in Stiles’ direction, and Stiles held his hands up and stepped backwards.

Malia’s eyes flashed in Derek’s direction.

“Just get out of here,  _cousin.”_

Derek paused, looked at her as if trying to find the resemblance.

“Don’t rip anyone apart.” He says – maybe trying for dark humour, Malia has no idea – and then disappears into the night.

Malia quietly growls after him then huffs.

(“Punch?” Stiles offers.

“Gladly.” She says, and takes the drink.)

Things that DON’T Happen, and as a result…;

Scotty ain’t bitten, don’t rush out on Ally, she don’t get driven home by Der, who don’t take her jacket and hang it in the woods for Scotty, who doesn’t go to the woods bc he ain’t bit, so no big werewolf hunters reveal, that’s still (shhhuusssshhh) secret. Also thus no big ‘Ally A’s fam is kinda evil soz not sorry haha’ reveal (tho her dad ends up being like, aside from her, the only semi-chill one) so NO-One (except Derek but whenever in s1 was he ever forward and helpful  _and_ truthful he can’t do all at once too much broody-brooding for that)… on the good side… knows… dun Dun DUN.

(I mean, Pete also knows but lmao if you think he’d help normally, let alone in his state)

* * *

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> AND THAT’S A WRAP. For episode one and pre-canon, I think this is actually pretty neat??
> 
> Like I don’t think I botched too much shit up, guys. Sorry I didn’t go into much detail with Scotty, but I don’t think much about his pre-series life would have changed??? So yeah. Feel free to flesh out this AU with headcanons, I’m not done ‘til I’ve not-ficced the whole series.
> 
> It is 05:22 in the morning and I feel like I’ve accomplished something??? Lmao that’s probably because I need sleep.
> 
> ‘Night, all.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> day three (& maybe four?... Hmm... we'll see...)

Okay, first things first, I made a few grammatical errors, spelling mistakes and inconsistencies within the previous part, goddmanit*. God damn it. Ah well. 

(* Godd-man-it ? Not sure how I managed that...)

Onto day three...(Episode two...)

* * *

So, quick recap: Malia, Stiles & Scott - Friends. Scott not bitten, Peter restrained and looked after by MS and MT, DH knows about MT and MS' involvement and PH's removal from the long term care wards but doesn't know where he is, isn't sure about MT being his cuz, AA and SM are starting their relationship with no to minor creeping, which is better than last time, Lyds isn't harping onto Jackass to be better bc Scotty isn't super-ed up and acing lacrosse, Jackson knows nout about weres existing, and isn't suspicious of scotty, obvs Malia ain't coyote and no Eichen House visit (thank fuck), Argents not revealed as evil bastards yet. 

Yay!!!...???

ANywho, let us get on with this shite. 

Day three starts differently, obviously. 

Since there was no argent misshap, and SM's not a wolf, MS doesn't have to get up super early and drive around the woods at night to find him, and the morning's a pretty normal one, at least for Scott.

Stiles is instead now driving around the woods really early to pick up Malia and go talk at and feed and hydrate PH, so.. he still gets up super early but yeah. They're both just a little late to their respective schools - this means Stiles misses Chris and since Scott wasn't shot by him the previous night, he has no reason to mention the man aside from a passing thing that he's Alison's Dad, Stiles is still unaware of the hunters in town.

Since Scott didn't bail on her, Allison and he don't have an awkward conversation and they're both really adorable. Score!

* * *

 

With MT and MS;

"Figured out the tubes yet?" Stiles asked.

"Nope." Malia sighed, put down the cooler. "They're more complicated than I thought."

"Well, yeah." Stiles shrugs. "But we can't exactly do this every day. People'll start wondering where on earth we ran off to."

Malia nods, and Stiles kneels next to Peter, gets him to eat and drink then stares at his blank eyes for a moment. 

"Nope." Stiles sighs. "Still nothing."

Malia shrugs. "Guess we'll just have to wait longer, then."

* * *

Scott, instead of being super duper down about Ally's dad being a hunter, is super duper happy as hell about the night previous and his morning greeting with his girlfriend. Stiles is happy for him, even if he has to shove the guy's lacrosse gear at him to remind him to put on a shirt. 

* * *

"Ye-ouch." Stiles winces, as Jackson, for reasons unknown, body-slams Scotty (who was put in play again because number 13 was ill and honestly that number was just an omen for how many of them this team would go through) to the ground. The Jackass, apart from the mild aches such an action might cause, is fine (of course) but Scott seems a little worse for wear from this distance. He gets back up again, though, so Stiles only winces, and doesn't go over to help or, alternatively, do something that might get him detention. 

Or suspended. 

Scott is not first line and nor is he a werewolf, so practice finishes normally with no severe injuries or almost reaveals of the whole supernatural world. Derek is also not present, as he has no real reason in this verse to be creeping on teenagers. 

* * *

Scott and Stiles video-chat after school as they did in canon, because lets be real this is probably a common occurance for them (and is adorable) and Mellissa isn't worried about her boy since there's nothing different about his demeanour and he's not on any drugs he isn't prescribed, and that's kind of it, since he's also not on first line, she's just checking in on him after her long day at work. 

So Stiles and Scotty video chat. It goes like this:

"I really wish I could make first line" Scott says, frowning slightly. 

"Well, take it this way," Stiles consoles, in a roundabout way, "At least you won't have to worry about needing your inhaler halfway during the match on Saturday." 

Scott sighs. "I guess." The teen's demeanour changes quickly - the conversation moving onto another topic. 

"Let me guess." Stiles says, tone dry. "Allison and happy love-related-feelings?" 

Scott's smile is a little dopey. "She had a lot of fun the other night; at the party." He says. "I gathered," Stiles replied. "You two looked like you were both having fun." 

Scott nods. "How's Malia?" He asks, abrupt. "Fine," Stiles waves aside, "Peter is her dad, though. We've been visiting, but he's rather... unresponsive." Stiles hesitates, allows slowly. 

"Say hey for me." Scott says - then, abruptly, narrows his eyes and frowns at the screen. 

"Scott? Yo, Scotty, what're you looking at?" Stiles questions, and Scott's brows furrow, then he says - 

"There's someone behind you."

The video chat takes that moment as it's cue and cuts off, just as Stiles takes Scott's word for it and spins his chair around - freezes, stares at the unwanted, unwelcome guest. 

"I know you know where he is." Derek says. "You're involving yourself in things that you can't handle. Endangering you and your family... Scott, the Sheriff. The people you know." 

Stiles rolls his eyes, stands and keeps his distance. "Yeah," Stiles says drily. "Like I'd believe you." 

Derek, well, _growls_  - it's a kind of growl, one tinged heavily with annoyance, frustration. 

"Woah!" Stiles lifts his hands up in a placating gesture. "No need for that, really. But I 'can handle' the things that are going on, thank you very much." 

Stiles was, indeed, rather offended. Lucky for him - 

"Why am I not surprised?" 

Malia's at the door. They'd planned to visit Peter tonight, see if they could get any form of response from the man. Looks like that's not happening. 

"Derek here was just leaving." Stiles says. "After what I'm guessing was threats towards me and everyone I know, which, thanks so much for that." Stiles directs this at the werewolf, obviously sarcastic. "That'll help my anxiety." 

The Hale scowls at them both. "Look, cousin." Malia says, exasperated, "This is the  _Sheriff's House._ Get the hell out before you're caught and arrested." 

"This isn't going to turn out well for you." Derek says. "Especially not when you're involving teenaged humans who -" 

"Get. Out." Malia interrupts, eyes a bright blue. "Get out before  _we_ throw you out." 

Derek stays for a moment. "Just tell me where he is, and you won't have to involve yourselves in this world."

Malia huffs - sighs, walks forwards and shoves the older male, who (seemingly surprised) stumbles backwards. 

He then looks a little angry, the werewolf, looks like he might retaliate but  _looks_ at Malia and seems to change his mind. 

"Don't say you weren't warned." He grunts, and then is gone - out through the window in seconds. 

Stiles and Malia share a glance. All in all, that could have gone worse.

The computer rings out; Scott calling for another video chat, presumably to ask  _what the hell_ all that was about. Stiles drops into the seat, takes the call, as Malia leans over his shoulder. 

"Oh." Scott says belatedly when the call starts. "Hey Lia." 

"Scott." She returns, smiling. 

"I'm guessing that was you, then." 

"Yeah," Stiles responds. "Teach me to sit around in the dark. Nearly had a heart attack."

Scott grins and Malia laughs, slightly, They chat for a bit, then Scott yawns and Malia makes excuses about having to go home, and the call is shut off and then the two of them are in silence in the dark bedroom for a moment, before Malia stands straight and goes to the window. 

"Too late to visit tonight." She says. "We'll do it tomorrow." And then she's out, down, running off home. 

Stiles spins in his chair for a moment, sighs, and then opens up google. 

He's not tired enough to sleep yet tonight. 

* * *

In class the next day, Lydia and Scott still go up to the blackboard to do some questions, because it's not like any of this would change that. 

"So Allison seems fond of you." Lydia starts, abrupt and to the point, not really paying attention to the equation but likely acing it anyway. 

Scott glances over to her, surprised that the girl was talking to him, and shrugs. 

"I hope so." He says, and she hums, turns her head towards the board.

"Cute." She responds. "Not enough, however." 

Scott's chalk pauses on the board, as he looks towards her properly. 

"Eyes on the board, McCall." Lydia says smoothly. "I'll do the talking."

Scott reluctantly turns back towards the question, racks his brain as he tries to work it out and pay attention to what the girl is saying simultaneously. 

"You're cute together. That's not enough." She starts. "Allison could be popular, like me, and you're really not helping that."

Her lips quirk up. "Nobody likes a loser, and you've never won anything in your life. Fix that, and maybe you'll be good enough."

She sighs, fake and obvious. Deliberate. "If not, there's always other guys. A whole lacrosse team of them, in fact."

Lydia marks the last digit with her chalk, and flounces off with a flip of her hair and a confident walk, smiling vaguely at the class as she passed. 

"Mr. McCall, you're not even close to solving your problem."

Scott winces. 

* * *

You see, Scott's not first line and Lydia's, at least in season one, kind of an utter bitch about popularity. She's never even heard of this guy, and he's caught her new bestie's heart (as she's caught his) but he's not  _worthy,_ he's not good at sports and in this Lydia's mind, the only thing going for him is his looks, but he doesn't even work with that because he dresses so terribly. He's not even (again, in her eyes, from what she's seen) smart, considering how badly he just did at the problem they were set, so really, she can't tell what Allison's so infatuated with aside from the fact that he's cute and kind of simple. 

(Again, in her eyes, from what she knows and she's seen. You do have to admit season one scott was kind of dense at times.)

Allison, of course, doesn't give a fuck, and as it was in the middle of a lesson when the whole class could hear them (seriously, Lydia?) that threat spread like wildfire she'd heard it by lunchtime and the first thing Allison did was argue with the redhead about it (I know, I know, 'strawberry blonde', whatever Lydia's a redhead if I've ever seen one) for the whole hour. 

* * *

Scott doesn't have werewolf senses, so he doesn't know about the curfew. Stiles isn't able to get close enough to eavesdrop, and Malia didn't answer so he can't get her to do it for him through the phone, and so none of them know about the curfew until Melissa tells the Scott and Chris tells the girls. 

* * *

"What was it?" Stiles questions the instant he's in through Malia's window. 

"Was it a smell, or a sense or - or - like, something you saw? -" He rushed, blinking quick and stumbling. 

"Maybe chill on the Adderall, Stiles." Malia said. "Then I'd be worse and you know it." He responds. "Remember when we were younger, before I got the prescription?" 

"Yeah," Malia said. "It wasn't as bad as it can get now, Stiles."

Stiles rolls his shoulders, eyes, and shrugs. "Well - whatever," He dismisses, "Go on - tell me."

Malia sighs, puts the topic away for a later date. That manufactured, off scent of  _something_ that she now knew to be the prescription drugs stung her nose and she forced her coyote into the background so it wouldn't rage (at least, for now).

"There was blood." She frowned, looking off into the distance. "I don't know who, or what - but there was blood."

"Wolf hairs on the body." Stiles says. "You think -?"

"That she's buried in my cousin's backyard? Yeah." Malia nods. "I don't think he did it, but it's - it doesn't look good."

"Fuck." Stiles cursed, dropped onto the bed and his mouth _twisted_ for a moment before he sighed. 

"We need to go make sure." Stiles says. "Just - I _can't -_ "

Malia nodded, in complete agreement. "We need to know." She said.

They can't just leave this alone. They're in too deep for that, now. Derek didn't exactly help that with the way he was acting.  

* * *

 

When they arrive at the hospital, the both of them make their way to the morgue. 

("Call it morbid curiosity." Stiles says drily, and leaves out that he's coming along because this is not something someone should do alone - looking at a dead body in a morgue and trying to recognise it from scent.) 

("You're gonna faint, Stiles." She argues, but doesn't really protest - because in truth, she really doesn't like dead bodies.

Too many bad memories.) 

They make it into the morgue and Stiles scowls at the lack of security, mutters for a bit as they look for the dead lady's remains. 

Once they find it, Stiles is the one who opens the storage. Malia wrinkles her nose but takes in a breath, gags but nods as stiles put the remains away again.

"That's it." She nods. "Same scent."

The two look at each other, and honestly this is  _really_ not looking good for Derek. 

* * *

"We don't have proof that he killed her, but we have proof that he's done  _something_ he shouldn't have." Stiles says. 

"So what?" Malia asks. "It's not like the police are gonna go by smell, and I don't really want to risk Derek catching us."

"Oh, he won't catch us." Stiles assures. "If he shows up I'll run one way and you'll run another. Whoever he catches he catches."

"That'd be you, Stiles." Malia says. "And I'm not just gonna leave you like that."

"My point," Stiles says, "For one thing. Also - neither would I, but still. Needs must."

Malia huffs. "So... your plan?"

"I say we use it; that semi-proof." Stiles says. You - distract him, somehow, and I'll see if I can find the body."

"You can't smell it though." Malia points out. 

"And he'd be instantly suspicious if I tried to distract him." Stiles says. "Also I don't really want to be alone with the guy who vaguely threatened my dad because there's no telling what would happen."

Malia grimaced. "Alright." She sighs. "I think it was at the bottom left of the house? But I'm not sure."

"Thanks." Stiles says. "Chat with him, ask him about the stump, your family - whatever, just get him away from the house."

Malia nodded. 

"Let's go."

* * *

Stiles wasn't sure if volunteering to do this (perhaps more willingly than he should have) said anything about his character, but he does know that it's incredibly tedious. 

Luckily for him, the girl wasn't buried too deep, and there was a nice and helpful aconite plant attached to a rope that lead to this spot (in a sort-of-strange spiral shape; Stiles thinks that could be significant somehow) that meant finding the damn thing was easier than he'd expected.

Stiles was about to slam the shovel into the ground yet again when he saw something. The teen tugged at the rope and saw said something move, and grinned slightly.

Success! Uh - not exactly a _good_ thing, that's not what he means; it's a dead body of course it's not _good_ , and it implicates Derek rather heavily in _murder, fuck -_  but uh... still.

Success?

... Anyway, Stiles fiddled with the knots and grunted in annoyance when he noticed how heavily tied the rope was.

"Is like, 900 knots really necessary?" Stiles wonders, grumbling to himself. After a few minutes he finally gets the thing undone (thanks in part to a Swiss army knife he'd... borrowed... from his dad's office) and unwraps the body, jumps back a little when he sees a wolf and not a girl.

But he trusts Malia, and in this universe he personally knows a full shifter - so he knows that this, regardless of what it looks like, is still very likely to be the girl. 

Stiles looks at the aconite, the rope - 

_I wonder..._

Carefully separating the rope from the bag, balling it up with the wolfsbane and throwing it off into the woods (not quite as hard as he could... he wants to find it later after all - ) results in the wolf transforming into the dead (and,  _whoops,_ best cover that - very naked) body of a lady Stiles doesn't recognise. 

Though, Stiles thinks - looking at her, she  _does_ resemble Derek a fair bit. Are all werewolves related or what, for fuck's sake. 

Still, Stiles grabs his phone and texts Malia.

_You were right. What do you want to do about it?_

Because, well - Stiles... this isn't really  _his_ problem. In the sense that he can quite tell it's a family matter - this woman is similar enough to Derek for him to pause, and so far fucking everyone's been related so - 

 _Anonymous tip._ She responds.  _Get the hell out of there, Stiles._

He doesn't have to be told twice. 

* * *

 

Derek is taken away by the police the next morning. Stiles takes a totally allowed gander at his mug shots, and frowns at the glare.

 _Odd,_ he thinks, and notes it down mentally. 

Being totally discrete, Stiles makes his way through the Sheriff's department and wanders into the holding cell area. Stiles smiles winningly and utterly falsely at Derek, safe in the knowledge that if the man actually did anything there'd be a real reason for him being in here. 

"Okay, so," Stiles starts, "This looks really bad for you dude." 

Derek glowers at him, and doesn't say a word. Stiles shrugs. 

"Suit yourself." He mutters, then carries on. "I just wanna know something. That girl that you possibly killed - she was like you, wasn't she?" He asks jerks his head ever so slightly up towards the security cameras in the corner of the room. 

Derek doesn't respond. Since it was a rhetorical question, that doesn't bother Stiles and he barrels on, uninterrupted. 

"But she was a little different. A different kind of similar." Stiles says. "Like Mal." 

Derek's eyes narrow slightly, for a moment - He doesn't know what Stiles is saying, Stiles realises. Doesn't know that Malia's a full shifter.

Oh well.  _Sorry Mal._

"You know." Stiles waves. "Better at the whole thing. a  _full shift_ of her abilities, right?"

Derek looses the narrowed eyes in favour for a momentary nostril flare. Gotcha. 

Stiles nods. "Is that why she's dead?" He asks, blunt. "Because she's a different type?"

_Was jealousy or fear or - hatred - the reason for her death?_

"Why are you so worried about me when my Uncle is missing?" Derek says. 

"This all started with your arrival." Stiles says. "As far as I know with the current info, at least."

That's all bullshit; Stiles knows very well that Peter's behind a lot of this and also likely behind the death of the girl, but Stiles can't be  _certain_ and that bugs him. 

"And you did threaten my family and me and all that, so really this is more a precaution than anything else." Stiles adds.

He hears footsteps. "Gotta go." Stiles grimaces, and strides down the hall, purposefully passes his dad and gets maybe five extra steps before he's grabbed.

"There. Stand." 

Stiles shifts and winces, rubs the back of his head. "Sorry," He mutters - not really sincere in the slightest. It had to be done.

"What the hell do you think you're doing?" The sheriff demands, ignoring the lacklustre apology.

"I'm just trying to help." Stiles placates, implores his dad with his eyes.

The Sheriff rubs at his face, suddenly tired. "How the hell did you even find out about this?"

"I listened to your conversation about the anon tipper." Stiles lies - says it the way he always has done regarding his self-imposed involvement with the Beacon Hills' police force; a tone that says his Dad should really know better and isn't it obvious? A little brazen, a little blase - a little like he thinks _'duh.'_

His dad sighs. "So this happened when?"

Stiles tries to rack his brain. _Uh. Shit._

 _"Crap."_ He mutters, and Noah nods. 

"So you're lying to me."

"Ah - that... depends on how you define lying." Stiles puts forth, wincing.

"Well, I define it as not telling the truth. How do you define it?" The sheriff asks, and Stiles cringes slightly.

"Mhmm... reclining your body in a... horizontal... position?" Stiles says hesitantly. 

"Get the hell outta here." 

"Absolutely." And Stiles runs off; having already gotten everything he'd figured he'd get from Derek, there was no reason to push his luck. 

* * *

 

"I still don't get why he buried her with wolfsbane." Malia says. "What did you do with it, by the way?"

"It's under my bed, back home." Stiles says. "Might wanna stay away for a bit while I look up it's affects on werecoyotes."

Malia nods, and frowns down at her phone. "It's not like, a burial ritual or anything, at least according to ten different websites on the topic."

Stiles hummed. "Maybe it's like a special skill, you know? Like something you have to learn, like what you did."

Malia inclines her head. "Maybe it's different for female werewolves," she mused. "Or different for werewolves as opposed to werecoyotes."

Stiles inclined his head. "We're here." 

The two exited the jeep and stared up at the empty shell of what used to be the Hale House. 

"Right." Malia said. "So we're looking for - something. Anything that survived the fire; a book, or a laptop - a freaking, what, usb stick or disc or whatever."

"Anything that might have good info." Stiles agreed, looking around. "I'll take upstairs while you take down?"

"Is that because you think the floor'll collapse down and I'd survive it on top of me but you wouldn't?" Malia says drily, rhetorically, but agrees regardless and the two set about their search. 

 

Malia ventures into the living room, but really it's all just old burnt up furniture and sheets covering every surface. She finds nothing in there except loose floorboards and what might've been an entryway to a basement at one point, but by now the tunnel and stairs have collapsed in on themselves; it must have happened during the fire, at least for the main collapse, and the many years of neglect between then and now were definitely not helping. 

The kitchen and what she thinks may have been a dining area, along with a study and a single downstairs bedroom and finally the utility room are all along the same lines. Sighing, she waits at the bottom of the stairs for Stiles, who takes a little longer but emerges unsuccessful. 

Malia waits, ready to leave - but then Stiles hits the second to last step and they  _freeze,_ because that sound had been... hollow.

Stiles immediately drops and she falls into a crouch next to him, as he hurriedly opens the secret compartment and reveals - 

"Well, that's suspiciously new." Stiles comments. 

"Is this fireproof wood or what?" He mutters as he lifts up the laptop, attempts to turn it on.

They're both surprised when this works, and are even more surprised at the lack of password.

"... I guess they figured that only people who are supposed to know where it is would be using it, considering it's so well hidden." Malia offers, frowning. 

"Well, it helps us." Stiles says. "No internet - obviously - but there are folders here." He blinks in surprise. "Oh. Well. That's useful."

"What?" Malia asks - glancing at his face, moving away from the compartment. (She'd been looking to see if anything else was in there.) 

"A collection of neatly ordered information regarding the supernatural world, of course." Stiles says.

Malia smiles. 

"Jackpot."

* * *

Lydia approaches Scott before the game starts, a smile on her face and sharp, pointed judgement in her eyes. 

"Greenberg is... terrible." She says. "I convinced Jackson to get coach to sub you in at the earliest opportunity." 

Scott stares at her. "- What?" He asks, bewildered. Lydia brushes down his sleeve and her smile is sharp now, matching here harsh eyes. "I just want you to remember one thing for tonight - nobody likes a loser, Scott McCall. Take this chance for what it's worth and don't ruin it for all of us."

She tugs him closer and whispers, "After all, I don't think anyone will be too happy if we don't win. I might get Alison to comfort some of the players - who would not be the reason for our failure tonight, McCall. Remember this; Allison is not a given if I don't approve."

And she pats his shoulder again, smirks at him, then pretends to spot Allison and walks off after her, hips swaying deliberately.

Scott caught Allison's eye, and his returned wave and smile are strained and half-hearted at best. 

* * *

The game is starting, and Scott and Stiles are on the bench next to Lahey and one of the other substitute players. 

Scott seems worried about something, and Stiles is absentmindedly chewing on his lacrosse glove, thinking about how bad of an idea it might've been to confront Derek head on like he did. 

Coach had just finished pep-talking Jackson, who was now on the field. Scott's eyes were somewhere in the crowd, and Stiles bet pretty high that it was Allison he was looking at. 

Before he could say anything though, his Dad tapped him on the shoulder. Stiles turned his head slightly, gave a responding smile. 

"Hey kid." Noah said quietly. "Think you'll see any action?"

"Mhmm... Not really." Stiles sighed. 

The Sheriff patted him on the shoulder and looked to Scott. "What about you, Scott? Think you'll be out there tonight?"

"Huh?" Scott turned his attention to the Sheriff. "Oh - uh." His eyes went back to the crowd and Stiles followed his line of sight.

He quirked an eyebrow.  _Lydia?_

Scott returned his attention back to Noah. "I've been told that's likely."

The Sheriff grinned. "Well, good luck then. Be cheering for you since Melissa isn't here."

Scott smiled slightly. "Thanks." He said, genuine. "Don't think I'll be deserving much cheering, though."

"Down!" The Referee barked. "Set!"

Coach yelled out approval Jackson's way, and Stiles winced. "Brutal." He muttered. "Oh, this is not gonna be good."

Jackson had body-checked one of the other team's members and scored a goal, only he'd done such in a way that wouldn't mean a blatant foul. 

Scott was muttering under his breath, staring off into the field, eyes flicking between Jackson and Greenberg. 

Stiles nudged him in the side, and the teen nearly jumped out of his skin.

"Woah," Stiles muttered. "Wanna tell me something Scotty?"

"Lydia basically threatened me into playing today and somehow winning?" Scott looked bewildered."

"So what, she accosted you before the game and sweetly told you in no uncertain terms that if you didn't win us the game today she'd, what, get Allison a new boyfriend?"

"Pretty much, yeah." Scott gulped, glanced at Stiles. 

"Well." Stiles sighed. Patted Scott on the shoulder. "Good luck with that."

Scott groaned and dropped his head in his hands. Yeah, Stiles can understand the sentiment.

He's doomed. 

* * *

"Get Greenberg off the pitch." Jackson said to the team. "He's fucking terrible. Even  _McCall,_ the Asthmatic, is better than him." 

There was a round of agreement. "Danny, you go in goal. I don't know why you aren't yet, but switch with Elliot." 

Danny nodded, and he glanced at Elliot, who had already agreed. 

"Let's do this." 

* * *

The Referee blew his whistle; Jackson had thrown the ball to Elliot but Greenberg had, somehow, in a surprising turn of events, intercepted. Unfortunately for Greenberg, one of the other team's members decided at that moment to slam into him - having been discretely tripped on Jackson's orders, insofar as you can during a lacrosse match (they're lucky it's dark out) - and thus Greenberg twisted his ankle enough for it to be useless, if at least not broken.

"McCall" Coach abruptly shouted out. "You're up!"

Scott winced heavily, but stood and grabbed his stick from the bench.

"What about my Asthma, Coach?" Scott said weakly.

"You're still better than Greenberg." Finnstock said, and with that Scott was out on the field.

Scott (and Stiles) heard some cheering from the stands; Scott snuck a glance and saw it to be Allison. He also caught Mr. Stilinski's smile and thumbs up, and both of these - disregarding Stiles' slightly anxious expression - served to bolster his confidence. 

The key, Scott figured, would be to stay out of it as much as possible.

* * *

Scott did not get to stay out of it as much as was possible.

People kept on insisting on throwing the ball in his direction. He'd missed nearly every time, and the times he didn't miss, he missed the pass or the net, or it was caught by the other team or the goalie, so either way he failed at life.

And then - here it was again. Scott, this time, caught the ball, and threw it and -

Well. Damn, that was lucky.

To be fair, it was probably more that, if you _can_ say anything positive about Jackson, it's that he's pretty damn good at lacrosse, given how much he practices, so really it's not a surprise that he caught it, more that Scott's throw wasn't pitiful or wildly off target. 

There was whooping - probably Stiles, and clapping which was (hopefully) Allison. "There you go!" Was shouted and Scott could tell that was the Sheriff, and he grinned as Jackson scored.

His grin diminished as he heard someone mutter _"Finally"_ and after that, the game picked up for the team. The ball didn't strangely seem to head in his direction quite as often, and so Scott managed to stay out of it for the rest of the game.

They won, thank god, and there was a lot of cheering from the crowd.

* * *

"Well done." A voice says, and Scott nearly jumps out of his skin. "Wha - Lydia?" He asks, bewildered.

She smirks, but her lips twist slightly in reluctance. "I suppose you passed adequately. Allison's waiting for you outside.

Scott blinks and then realises, quickly shoving his T-shirt over his head. "Wait - this is the locker rooms, Lydia." He says, slightly affronted.

"Yes." She acknowledges. "Easier to talk without eavesdroppers, right Stilinski?"

 Stiles wanders over to them, rubs the back of his head. "Hey, Lydia."

The girl in question hums. "I'm going to go find Jackson." She says, ignoring Stiles. "Don't blow it."

Lydia flounces out of the room, and then Allison stumbles in, as if pushed. 

"Hi." She says, awkwardly. "Scott. Stiles." 

Stiles half-smiles half-grimaces, nodding to her once. "Hey." Scott says, a smile taking over his face. 

Stiles sighs. "I'm gonna go tell Mal about the game. She'll be happy to know you got to play."

Stiles wanders off, leaving the two teens alone. 

* * *

"Derek's not in holding anymore." Stiles says when he sees her, foregoing a greeting.

"Damn." Malia says. "Was hoping to keep him out of the way for a while. How come?" She asks. 

"Well, I'll keep it simple. Medical examiner determines killer of girl to be animal, not human. Derek's human, not animal. Derek not killer. Derek let out of jail." Stiles grimaces. "Really, we should have thought of that. People don't tend to leave the kind of bite marks she had on her legs, after all."

"But the chopped in half thing." Malia says, confused. "That wasn't like, a tearing an animal could accomplish. That was - almost surgical. A precise cut at the waist, not a tear."

"I know." Stiles said. "That's the only discrepancy, really. None of them can really figure out how or why the animal did it, or how wolves were even in California despite it being sixty years since the last sighting."

"And, uh..." Stiles paused. "Her name was Laura Hale. Derek's sister. Your cousin."

Malia rubbed at her forehead. "This just keeps getting more complicated."

"Tell me about it," Stiles says drily, but he rubs her shoulder comfortingly regardless. "We'll figure this out, Mal. We will."

Malia started up the laptop, and opened a folder, went to the file they were halfway through.

"Then let's study." Stiles sighed, but he turned his attention to the screen despite his (false) reluctance.

* * *

Whoooooop - Days three and four, five and six (?) done *brushes off hands* hope you enjoyed.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> dunno when the next part will be, sticking with the single episode per chapter format since that means I get a fair few days of stuff to change. 
> 
> Onto another fanfic, gotta get a bunch more out before my free time becomes nonexistent.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Episode three, so the next couple of days, onwards! This is slow going and I'm vr srry guys

Okay, so there's this whole dream sequence at the start of this episode (Pack Mentality) that just... wouldn't happen in this universe. Scott wasn't bitten and so was literally everyone else, so Peter has no betas. Which, in turn, also means he's got less power but that he's somehow  _more_ fucked up in the head than he was in canon.

So. Uh. Oops?

Anyway - so, when the school bus driver (that guy, you know the one - the one that used to do stuff with insurance or some shit and faked the fire accounts so it didn't look like arson? Yeah,  _that_ bastard -) is... not brutally murdered on the bus. Because Peter is locked up and constantly attended to by his daughter and her bestie, Stiles, he's not (currently) running around murduring people. 

So. The plot of this episode... kind of falls apart. We already know who the alpha is - it's Peter - the guy can't be killed because Peter isn't running about, and so far this means that the only casualty was Laura. Which. Ouch, yikes, still - but something, right? 

I mean. At least in canon the people that died sort-of-kind-of-actually fucking deserved it (in a way, you can see where Peter is coming from even if it would have been better for them to rot in prison for all eternity) but in this version, the only dead one is Laura.

Which means Peter helped the Argents wipe out his family. In a way.

... Yikes. That's  _totally_ not going to make things ten times worse for his head. And therefore the people around him.

Oops. 

So... I guess for people other than Stiles and Mal, this episode just kind of... goes like a normal teen drama?? What nice lives these kids have.

No. Really. We know how badly this could have gone. 

* * *

Scott still embarrasses himself (in his own head) at the lunch table, when the double date accidentally gets made.

Except... this time, Stiles wasn't present (he's off messaging Malia in the library and figuring out how they're gonna get past Derek's senses into the basement so that they can feed Peter and get the tubes set up, since Malia's finally figured that shit out) and Scott kind of just... mopes alone for a little bit until Allison finds him and they have a sweet little chat.

Bear with me; I... am notoriously bad at writing the elusive art known as 'fluff'.

* * *

> "Hey, Scott," Allison greets him, drops down on the bench next to him. They're outside the school and Scott's just kind of... sitting there. Mentally slapping himself for getting so caught up in the double-date bullshit and Jackson's incessant need to one-up everything everyone ever  _does,_ that he actually like... kind of lied and is ging to  _horribly_ embarrass himself and Lydia's gonna change her mind and it's just -
> 
> Ugh.
> 
> Just  _ugh._
> 
> "Hey," He manages, turns his head and looks at her. She smiles at him, all dimples and how on  _earth_ did Scott manage this? He's asthmatic and weak and unpopular and he's somehow dating this great, wonderful, beautiful girl who  _is_ popular and strong and doesn't have a debilitating disability.
> 
> "Something wrong?" She asks, with genuine concern, and Scott could never lie to her, not about something so terribly  _petty._
> 
> "I'm a terrible bowler," He admits. 
> 
> Allison blinks. 
> 
> "I know! I know..." He groans, turns his head back onto his arms. "I'm an idiot, I never should have said what I did."
> 
> "Maybe," Allison says, "But you aren't an idiot." He feels a hand on his shoulder and Scott glances at her out of the corner of his eye.
> 
> "How about we practice?" She offeres. "After school." She smiles at him, and Scott could never say no to that smile.
> 
> "Sure," He agrees, smiles back slightly, and her face just - lights up, and it's -
> 
> Stunning. 
> 
> "Great!" She jumps up, holds a hand out for him to take. "We've got class," She says, just as the bell rings. "C'mon."
> 
> * * *

So they're cute, and that's great, and it's maybe (??) a little funny if I could write humour, or whatever. 

There's no bus attack, so the sheriff doesn't have to go to Deaton and get lied to, and there's no curfew so Melissa lets her son borrow the car (I assume this means that Scott has a driver's licence??? Maybe??? I sure fucking hope so, god damn) 

I guess the dog and the police officer still get spooked by a in a 'pranking-the-police-mood' Derek, since Derek was still arrested in this version of things so they're still all Suspicious of him, I guess. Also the fact that Laura was half-buried there too, that's an important point. 

* * *

So, uh, Lydia still insults Allison's fashion sense, and she still flirts with Mr. Argent (please, stop, Lydia no -) and all that jazz, but Chris doesn't do much aside from ask where they're going and asks Allison to be back by a reasonable time, young lady, except not like that at all because Chris is the 'Cool Dad', except when he's not (and being flirted with by an underage girl, no, Lydia - you are making the man severely uncomfortable  _and_ embarrassing your friend,  _stop.)_

So Allison doesn't have to flip out of the window, which... darn, but also good? No sneaking out against the law, I guess?

And... I guess the only real difference is that Lydia (shockingly... man, I didn't remember my girl being quite this bad...) doesn't flirt with Scott during the bowling scene, mostly (no... only) because he doesn't do all that well despite Allison's... I'll say 'advice' along with the practicing they'd been doing over the past few days (??). 

And.. the scenes with Chris and Derek that are interspersed between the bowling scenes are pretty identical? I mean, there's only been one death so far (and it was a werewolf in therefore in typical Hunter fashion they don't care all that much) so it's not as intense, the camero's window is spared (it's front tyre isn't tho) and that's that, really.

So I guess the only stuff that's changed is the Malia and Stiles stuff, right?

... kinda. 

Stiles is sequestered away at school and so is Malia, and since she doesn't have a phone yet, they're kinda stuck on communication (they have to use skype,  _ugh._ Or heaven forbid,  _emails.)_

So... they can't just skip a lesson or two. Which means - score! They're not lowering their attendance and increasing the chances of being held back and doing poorly on tests and stuff.

But... also they can't really do anything about Peter. So he's just... sitting there. Bored. Hungry. Mostly comatose, still.

So. That's... fun. Not really. In fact, that's pretty rough. 

ANyway, I guess they visit before and after school. After school they spend a few hours setting up the machines and shit to keep the guy alive, you know, set up a generator too for power and all that. They're gonna get it all cosy over the weekend, find a mattress to set him up on; it's gonna be sweet, you'll see.

But... until then, it's a dark dank basement that hasn't really been used for... over a decade, so it's not the nicest space. Anyway, I guess they hang out? Or maybe Malia goes home and... well.

You remember I said revenge was her anchor? Yeah.

She researches about her mom.

* * *

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And that's a wrap! Onto episode four :)
> 
> Not much changed in this one? So... that's a thing. Thoughts?


	4. That Bitch, You Know, The Ephebophillic One. Kate, Basically.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> That Bitch has come to town. Unfortunately, she ain't like santa. She'll kill your kids (or, well... y'know) and kill you, and won't leave any presents under the tree.
> 
> Rude.

Some people like to give Kate Argent a redemption arc. And I mean, sure, if you set your story when she's like one years old and you give her a better family than Gerard Fucking Argent and also make sure she knows that You Don't Fuck Teenagers, and gets all the psychiactric help pedophiles and their ilk are supposed to get, you know, so that they don't act on those gross impulses.

Like getting themselves put into a mental hospital. Or whatever they're called.

I - am not writing that kind of story, for one. I absolutely fucking hate her, for another, mostly because I was a gullible idiot when I first watched this show and like Allison, feel really gross for kinda liking her before her complete evilness was revealed.

So there's that. 

* * *

Kate arrives in Beacon Hills unscathed. Derek isn't quite so lucky when she shows up, however. See, Derek isn't chasing a wolfed out version of his sociopathic uncle, nor was he running around in a wolfed-out state.

Nope. He was just minding his own business, getting food from - what are they, in America? seven-elevens? - wherever, whatever, and Kate happens to recognise him.

The interaction goes something like this:

 

 

> Derek is just minding his own fucking business when it happens. He's got a bag of groceries in one hand, and he's about to put them in his trunk, when he feels someone tap his shoulder. He turns, ready to verbally scare them off, but then -
> 
> He sees who it is.
> 
> _Her._
> 
> "You." Derek says, quietly.
> 
> "D'aww,"  _She_ frowns, mock-sad. "Aren't you happy to see me?" Kate smiles at him - and she's still  _pretty,_ and he feels  _disgusting_ for even entertaining the notion. 
> 
> "Why are you here?" Derek grounds out, growls out, and she grins, smirks, evilly, at him. "Hunting, Der," She says. "Feel like joining me? It'll be just like old tmes." She grins - snide, cruel. Calculated.
> 
> "You can find me a way into their hideout, if you'd like. And we could fuck, after."
> 
> Derek snarls at her, and she pumps her shotgun and places it against his chest. 
> 
> "Now now," She chides. "Bad dog. I only want to talk, yeah?" Kate grins at him, lowers her gun but Derek isn't fooled. 
> 
> He's not some sixteen year old kid anymore. He's twenty-four, alright, he's older than she was at the time. 
> 
> He can do this. 
> 
> "Who's behind Laura's death, Der?" Kate asks. "Further question - how come she didn't die the first time?"
> 
> "We got lucky," He ground out, ignored her first question. He knew, but he wasn't going to tell her.
> 
> "I think I know," Kate grins, ignoring his response and ignoring her second question. "I think I know who the Alpha is."
> 
> Derek makes to - grab her gun, attack, something,  _just something -_
> 
> But he feels a burning pain in his arm and the dull thud of a gun against his head.
> 
> \---
> 
> "Pity," Kate sighs to herself, fishes out a bullet from her pocket and drops it into one of his. "He's grown up well." She mused. "Could'a had some fun, if he weren't a  _mutt._ _"_
> 
> She still needed him alive, though. Which, in all honesty, was the greatest pity.

* * *

  So... yeah. That - doesn't go great for Derek, the poor man. But he doesn't have to get anyone to sneak into the Argents house, which is good, because he doesn't have an in for that anyway. So that's that plotline wrapped up pretty quick. But it  _does_ mean that Mal and Stiles have no idea that Kate is in town, or that she's a hunter, or that the Argents are hunters.

Which means... there's no-one to warn Allison. 

Which...

Well. That's...

_Bad._

* * *

The one good thing is that Allison is  _smart._ Her dad lies to her; flat tyre. Her aunt lies to her too. 

They're only proving that she can't trust them. But in this world, so far as she knows, there's no other option. 

* * *

So Stiles and Scott don't talk about the Argents and the Alpha, but the rest of the conversation is similar.

It's... a little stilted. By this time, Scott's kind of gleaned that Stiles is keeping something from him.

So Stiles and Malia talk about Peter. But they also talk about that, too. 

 

 

> "I - I kind of wanna tell him." Stiles says. "Not - not literally everything, but everything that's needed, y'know?"
> 
> "So you aren't lying all the time?" Malia asks.
> 
> "No," Stiles waves his hand. No, he doesn't have a problem with that. "Just... so Scott knows that I might have to, at times, keep things unclear, you know?"
> 
> "Yeah," Malia says. "Yeah, okay. I'll come with."
> 
> It was after school, of course - they couldn't find any other times to do that sort of thing; to go to the Basement and talk about the goings-on. Not that they knew very much - Derek was, as always, either completely vague and unhelpful or not able to be found (today was the latter) - but it was still something they felt they needed to do.
> 
> So - they called Scott, and asked him to meet them at the Preserve. Malia went out and Stiles stayed in the Basement, and waited.
> 
> Now - that wasn't  _necessarily_ a mistake, but it wasn't the best choice. They're just lucky Peter is still mostly comatose, is all.
> 
> So, after a bit, Malia shows back up with Scott in tow, adorable confused expression and all. 
> 
> "Hey man," Stiles greets. Scott keeps wary eyes trained on Peter, and - yeah, not the best thing for him to see first-off but also one of the main ones. 
> 
> "We've got some stuff to explain," Malia says, and her eyes flare bright blue. 

So they explain. Scott's hesitant, sure, but he can't exactly deny Malia's fangs and face and super strength. Stiles vetoed demonstrating the superhealing ("No more pain than is necessary, please, I'm not good with blood") and so that was that.

Scott was in the know. But none of them knew anything more than the basics. They were still mostly in the dark about all this - just a couple of teenagers, with no more info than they had before. 

* * *

So - after filling Scott in, he dashes off to his study sesh with Ally. Make-out sesh. Apparently, teen-wolf's teens think that they're one and the same... no wonder Scott's getting Ds. 

(Snorts.)

Anyway, sorry about that (it's late, blame my brain not me) - Allison still shows Scott her prowess at Archery and her dad's armoury, but since Derek hasn't told anyone jack shit about his encounter with Kate (understandable, really, but rather unhelpful) Scott doesn't think anything of it, really. Chris is just an arms dealer and Allison's just a really, really freaking cool girlfriend, which, yes of course, but not the point. 

Scott's not even got lacrosse to bring up at the dinner so it's even more awkward and Chris is even more of a douche dad and Kate is (unfortunately, creepily) to the rescue, and Allison is still like 'dad, no, stop' and that's that, really. 

Since nobody has to help derek with his bullet wound, nobody can convince him to do anything and say anything about the Argents that would set him off, so he doesn't give any info to anyone about anything since there's no Peter in the hospital to show anyone anyway.

So. Not very yay. 

Allison still finds out that Kate's window was smashed and repaired, so she still figures out the lie, and that both Chris and Kate want her unaware of it. 

BUT. However - in this universe, we're not going to adhere to the Nobody Ever Eavesdrops, Ever, Unless Plot Requires They Do law, because, wow-oh-wow, were Chris and Kate being super, super  _not_ stealthy with their chat in the freaking living room. Allison, upon returning inside, hears the last of the conversation:

 

> Allison was - well.  _Uncertain,_ she supposes, but that seems inadequate. See, there's one thing that Allison really doesn't like, and it's her family lying to her. 
> 
> (Well, obviously she dislikes way more things than that, but her family's tendancy to be complete and utter lying jerks is one of the highest on her list.)
> 
> Alison gingerly and carefully brushed her fingers of the glass - she didn't want to explain needing a plaster - and went inside. But before she could walk past and interrupt whatever was going on in the living room, she heard -
> 
> "Take the pack leader, then take the pack." Kate. That was Kate's voice. What was - ?
> 
> "And we do it according to the code." That was her dad. What - what  _code,_ what  _it? -_
> 
> "You and the code," Kate sounded - indulgent, a little, probably because Allison's dad is her brother, but she mostly sounded snide, at least to Allison's ears. 
> 
> "It's there for a reason, Kate." Her dad chided, and, okay, but what the actual -
> 
> "Of course," Kate said, allowingly. "I always play by the rules."
> 
> Now that was a lie, plain and simple. Kate never played by 'the rules'; that's part of why Allison had always liked her. She was - fun, and nice, and helped her with things, and talked to her about the stuff Allison didn't feel comfortable with talking to her mother or her dad about.
> 
> Kate was like - like an older sister, almost, instead of her aunt. 
> 
> Allison took a risk and peeked around the corner - saw Kate light the fire, and wondered what this all  _meant._
> 
> (But she knew - if they lied to her about Kate's car, she can't trust what they'd tell her about all this 'pack' and 'code' and 'it' business. Hell, were her family assasins or some junk like that?
> 
> It's funny... but Allison wouldn't put it past them. She's not stupid, okay? Her parents leave the house at awkward times of night and sometimes come back with  _blood_ on them, okay, that  _doesn't happen_ if your only job is arms dealing.)

* * *

 

 Since there really wasn't much of anything to add or change in this one, we're gonna move onto 'The Tell'; season one, episode five.

Shall we?

* * *

* * *

Okay, so, this episode starts with something that, again, can't happen. You see my problem here? The video store clerk is still gonna stand on a ladder and attempt to change a malfunctioning lightbulb while all the other lights are still on (like an idiot) but he's not gonna die. Probably. Maybe. Okay, if he gets electrocuted, it's both karma and due to his own stupidity, and isn't murder. He's not murdered, that's the point I'm making here. 

Anyway, Jackson's gonna have to watch the notebook for the umpteenth time (man... the only time I sympathise with him, though I'd have sympathised with Lydia if they'd've had to watch the Sports Thing instead) Lydia takes rather a lot of pictures of herself and yada yada, teen romance stuff ensues, or whatever. 

Yay! No mental scars.

Okay so... not much is going to happen in this version of events, so far, I guess. Peter's locked up, Derek's silent on literally everything, and Malia, Stiles and Scott only know so much. Allison's gonna find out on her own, probably go to Scott about it, and he'd probably go to Malia and Stiles about  _that,_ so then Ally's brought into the loop. Maybe that's what's gonna happen in a couple episodes, maybe I'll bump up the timeline for Kate's indoctrination plan because Kate doesn't have to worry about the alpha or whatever because the only person that's died so far is Laura Hale, who is one less person that could figure out she was behind all this and therefore one less loose end. 

This is why this is a notfic, guys. It'd be a whole lot a' nothin'. 

I forgot that Kate gave Allison the pendant on her birthday, which is in this episode. Whoops. So she doesn't need to speed up her timeline but she will focus on it more, I think. 

So she gives Allison not just the pendant, but also pretends to drop a copy of the bestiary on the floor as she leaves the room. Why? Because Kate obviously wanted Allison to figure it out for herself, but also trust Kate on this. If Kate appears to be helping Allison without going against Chris' wishes, Allison will trust her more, or something. I guess.

Kate doesn't make much sense, guys. Bear with me, here.

* * *

"Hey," Allison smiles at Kate, but in her own head she worries about it seeming forced. (You see - nobody stole anything at the dinner - well, Allison still stole what she stole what I'm saying is that no bullets went missing, whoops - so Kate wasn't a 'hard bitch' about it so there's no worries there, Kate isn't going to be apologising today, ladies and gents)

"Hey yourself, birthday girl," Kate grins from her place at the door, in the doorframe - leaning against it, arms folded. Got a present for ya."

Allison perked up, slightly. She'd stayed up a little late last night hoping to see (or, well, not to see) if her parents would leave on whatever strange outing they usually leave on, and if Kate would follow.

"Present?" She asked. "Yep," Kate smiled, then held out her hand. Dangling from her fingers was a pendant - a wolf, maybe, some other stuff Allison couldn't quite make out at this distance. Kate walked over and Allison stood up to meet her - took the pendant from her Aunt's offered palm. 

"You know," Kate said, leading, "If you wanna know more about your family, then I'd look this up, yeah?" She smiled. "I mean, I know a couple cool things - Argent means silver, and back in the day we were hunters, for example - but you could probably find more on the internet." Kate grinned.

Kate always grinned, Allison had found. Never smiled. There was always something... sharp, about the way she showed her teeth. 

Allison nodded, smiled back hesitantly. "Thanks," She said, put on the necklace. "I'll make sure to."

Kate nodded and turned to leave - Allison could have sworn she saw her wink, slightly.

She heard the thud just before Kate exited the room, but Allison didn't mention it. Kate closed the door behind herself with a soft  _click,_ and Allison rushed to the small, dark shape she could see on the floor.

A USB stick. Allison frowned. She took it to her computer, and plugged it in.

Allison noted the file names were in French, and nodded to herself - she'd been raised to speak both languages, and while she admittedly was better at English, Allison figured she could read this well enough.

Allison opened the first file - 

_Argent._

_Argent means silver. We were once hunters._

And started reading.

* * *

So, that happens. Yeah, I know Gerard's is in Latin, but I've always kinda thought that that was a security measure? That there would be other copies in other languages? Latin for the people in france, French for the people in America, Latin for the ones in Canada (there are totally Argents in Canada, fight me - there are Argents  _everywhere)_ etc?

I dunno. It just makes sense to me. Thoughts?

* * *

Well. Now we know that Allison figures most of it out today (not all of it, but a fair bit, and she's hesitant to believe her own conclusions) she goes to Scott. She can't trust her dad or her mom or her aunt, so she goes to Scott.

Scott takes her to Stiles. Stiles takes them to Malia's house, and they explain what they themselves know.

Stiles and Malia find out about Hunters. Malia jumps out of her window and runs to go berate Derek, probably, Stiles asks Allison if she could get English versions of the files somehow.

Allison tells him she'll try.

* * *

"OI!" Malia yells at the Hale house. "Derek! I'd like to talk to you!"

"Malia." She hears, short and not very loud. " _Quiet."_

Malia frowns and approaches the house. "Derek?" She asks, again, but quieter. 

"Yes?" She hears, short, again. He's not in the mood for visitors, but she's not in the mood for people keeping secrets.

"Were you ever gonna tell me there are people in this town that would kill me at any given moment?" Malia demands. She sees him in an upstairs window and breaks out into a run, takes the stairs two at a time and comes to an abrupt halt in the doorway.

He isn't there, but the curtains are settling as if they'd just been moved by a strong draft. 

Malia jumps and  _just_ avoids the swipe at her legs - lands in a crouch and growls at the man behind her - growls and glares, eyes bright, ice blue. 

"What the  _fuck-"_ Malia demands- dodges a punch and uses his momentum against him. "Seriously, Derek-"

"You don't know  _anything."_ Derek snarls at her.

"I would if you'd  _fucking tell **me!"**_ Malia yells at him, angry and tired and frustrated and -

sixteen years old. 

_Scared._

* * *

Derek tells her. Not everything, exactly, but tells her what he told Scott in canon. That the argents must have set the fire and that Kate was the mastermind and that she shouldn't trust Allison -

 

> "She came to us first, Jackass," Malia interrupts. "Not her family. Someone's name doesn't define them."

\- Which she completely ignores because that's a ridiculous request, Derek, you dumb, (from her perspective, of course), and tells her about exactly what happened to her dad, his uncle, and why she needs to tell him where Peter is.

 

> "This again." Malia sighs. " _No,_ Derek. Six  _years._ You left him here for  _six years._ Given what you said, no wonder he's a little crazy."
> 
> "A  _little?"_ Derek demands. "Malia - he killed  _Laura."_
> 
> "...I know." Malia says, softer than she normally is. "But could you say with certainty that he was in his right mind when he did it? Because people can plead insanity, cousin. Sometimes... sometimes, the death of people close to you can be caused by you  _yourself,_ but through no fault of your own."
> 
> It had taken a while for her to believe that. For the fact is - if she decides she can't forgive Peter for this, Malia could never forgive  _herself._
> 
> She hasn't yet. Not quite. Like Derek, she's focused her anger elsewhere. But once that's over... maybe. Maybe she could. Because if she can forgive Peter, then she can certainly forgive herself.

* * *

Malia doesn't tell Derek where Peter is - but this time, he accepts that she won't. 

That doesn't mean he won't tail her the next time she goes there, however. Of course, she'd figure out he was there, and therefore that doesn't work and they have another (literal) fight about it, and then Derek does, finally, leave her to deal with this. 

For better or for worse. 

* * *

Let's back-track just a little. The school day passes similarly to canon - Ally and Scott skip (this is when she figures out his Asthma properly, btw, and they have a little chat about that and stuff and it is Healthy and Good), Chemistry passes similarly but without Stiles asking Danny anything (for shame) because he doesn't have a reason to (and an excuse to start the questioning) and Jackson doesn't have any neck scratches so Derek doesn't have to show up all menacing and stuff, partly also because Jackson didn't see anything the previous night.

In keeping with that, Stiles doesn't have to go to Lydia's to figure stuff out, and Lydia doesn't have to be all drugged up and stuff.

You see... the stuff that happens during school hours - the hunters visiting Derek's house - happens as-is. 

Sort of. Derek does know the Alpha is Peter, because in this verse there's no way it couldn't be known at all, so that's that. Kate kind of figures he knows but she also knows he'd literally never tell her, so the shooting up the house and Derek skedaddling happens as it was in canon. 

The parent-teacher stuff is as it was, and all that. Since Lyds and Stiles and (Apparently) Jackson and Allison are all above C grade students they don't need to be there (lucky them), but Ally was still skiving school that day so WHoops, she's in trouble. So's Scotty, since he actually had to be there, the dumb. My boy, concentrate, please. 

But you already know all that. The cougar scene happens the same way it did before - I've always figured that the mountain lion was a plant by the argents to stop people worrying but who am  _I_ to know?? well it is in this verse lol. 

And that's a wrap! Episodes four and five, done and dusted. See you in the next couple, folks!

**Author's Note:**

> first part pulled from my tumblr, @cescalr . Rest written here and posted when finished.


End file.
